A smart home environment is created at a venue by integrating a plurality of smart devices, including intelligent, multi-sensing, network-connected devices, seamlessly with each other in a local area network and/or with a central server or a cloud-computing system to provide a variety of useful smart home functions. Sometimes, one or more of the smart devices is located in an outdoor environment (e.g., in a porch or a backyard of a house). For example, one or more network-connected cameras are often installed on an outer wall of a house, and configured to provide video monitoring and security in the outdoor environment. These smart devices (e.g., the network-connected outdoor cameras) are normally placed on surfaces or mounted on walls at different outdoor locations of the smart home environment, and exposed to severe weather conditions (e.g., a rainfall, a snowstorm and direct sun exposure). Each outdoor smart device must be configured to attach firmly to different types of rough surfaces/walls in various possible outdoor environments, function reliably under various severe weather conditions that could happen, and last for a long duration in the possible outdoor environments. As such, there is a need to mechanically mount a smart device to an outdoor surface in a compact and robust manner, while incorporating into the smart device some resistance mechanisms against potential severe weather conditions.